I’ve learned that some of the people I grew up thinking were in the enemy’s camp, so to speak, are spectacular people who share many of the same interests and opinions I do.

[….]

I learned that I will never be competitive with Roland Martin on the fashion front, but he makes an excellent road trip companion through South Carolina. One of the most formative moments of my career at CNN was standing outside a hotel with Roland Martin and tourists began handing him luggage and keys as if he worked at the hotel — only because he was in a suit. His courteousness to the people when he did not have to be courteous and the fact that in the 21st century that’d happen at all really struck me profoundly.

Because of CNN I’m not just better at my job, but I’m a better person. For all the hate and angst from a lot of folks on the right over me going to CNN, I know many of the contributors I consider good friends were initially skeptical of my hiring. I had to learn an art form too often missing these days in partisan talk — the art of conversation, particularly with those who might disagree with me. I had to learn to be friends with people who I disagreed with. And I leave deeply caring for those people.

https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpg00Doug!https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpgDoug!2013-01-29 22:25:362013-01-29 22:25:36Have some courtesy, have some sympathy and some taste

I’m trying to translate. ‘After hanging out with conservatives, it was a shock to me that not everyone in the world is a raging asshole. Fortunately, almost everyone on television thinks screwing the poor is the right thing to do, and I was able to bridge the social gap between that and my opinion that everyone who doesn’t worship Reagan Christ is a sub-human deserving of death.’ Does that sound right?

The comment that made me laugh the most was the one saying, Good on you for being civil with lefties, altho they are all so mean that they pretend to like you behind the scenes and then they still come out and spew their liberal crap on tv! How dare they, what hypocrites!!!11!! etc etc

But the converse, that he was nice behind the scenes (well, according to him) and then him coming out and having a conservative viewpoint on tv is right and proper. Hello, samesame?

As a small child, I learned to turn a situation around backward in my mind and see if it still seemed fair. Blows holes in a lot of ideas I was being fed. These people are so astoundingly unaware of themselves. It must be really hard to hold their worldview together under these circumstances.

The best is the mod commenting on “picking fights” i.e. that both sides condemn the other for doing it, followed by a “Nah, liberals pick fights and conservatives use logic all the time, they’re still scum.”

with Roland Martin and tourists began handing him luggage and keys as if he worked at the hotel

Shit like this still beggars my imagination.

I managed to never see Erickson, except one time when his “Harry Reid fucks goats” self was paired with noted liberal David Gergen. For balance. But fact that they shit-canned the Matalins makes me happy. Of course, I think they still manifest on all three broadcast networks.

And that is the difference between the two sides, I guess. We see the goodness and potential and God-given gifts in our fellow human being – born and unborn – and they only see allies and enemies, color and sexuality and gender and victim class. Humans are sifted and sorted, pigeon-holed and categorized, and woe be unto those who try to slip the bonds of the label.

Her and the other alternate wingnut media are about to get run over by history and the ultimate progress toward a more perfect union. With all our many faults and bad behavior as a nation, sometimes, whatever the founders were thinking individually, collectively, they created an instruction manual with survival seeds of progress. We go through all kinds of angst and injustice, and even a very bloody civil war, but somehow the worm turns, even if way late.

The haters catch the bouquet from the matrimony of diligence and the better angels of our nature. It is one reason I am a dedicated small d democrat. And the fealty to process that keeps our progress viable, and not the temptation to violate that process for a desired result. That eventually delivers justice as an imperfect final result.

Meh. “Erick Erickson has a thoughtful piece.” This the kind of shit that keeps Sullivan employed. Ericksonofericksonoferick does this shit often enough on his blog. He’s as bad as the rest of them, and deserves to be shunned in polite society.

“I had to learn at CNN that those people who I still constantly say are destroying the world on purpose because they hate everything that is good and right can actually be pretty nice people when you talk to them. Not that that stops me from telling everyone that they’re purposefully destroying the world because they’re awful people, but when I’m actually, you know, hanging around them one-on-one I don’t try to hit them with a crowbar any more.”

Oh, and Lief? Maybe you could consider your little anecdote as evidence that maybe racism still is a factor in the world? Oop, no, sorry, not that much in the way of self-awareness.

This reminds me of how my parents interact with minorities. They show huge pride in their interaction with non-whites that “get it” (“Our door guy Darrell’s son is going to Duke!”) Not imagining the odds or extreme obstacles, rather they take partial credit.

Oy. I wonder what Mr. Martin thinks of this . . . being the living lesson that finally convinced EE that it’s not all free stuff and watermelon, being black. And I wonder how it could possibly be that EE made it this far in life without realizing that racism is real and that there are still a whole bunch of people paying the price for that special, gracious southern way of life.

Fuck Erik Erikson. He’s a dick. It’s insulting that he actually believed that somehow the 21st century no longer had racism. If he truly was shocked to see it then he is an ignorant dick living in a bubble. But more likely he actually thought it was funny because the truth is he is a USDA grade A asshole whose stock and trade is racism and hate mongering.

Only today I almost got in a brawl over CNN, which was on a giant screen in the doctor’s office. Chitchat about diners among patients during an extended piece on a FL newspaper quoting some health club guy that some baseball players took steroids. The next piece was on the CT father who was “SECOND AMENDMENT!!!” drowned out in a hearing, so this other patient in waiting started babbling about gun rights and can’t take our guns away. Seeing the look on my face, I guess, he said we really need guns now, more than in the good old days when we put the criminals in the electric chair, and now all they get is a cushy life with three meals a day. So I said I don’t believe in killing anyone, with my gun or in an electric chair. So he took a deep breath, and he was called back to see the doc.

1) he didn’t really fit in at CNN,
2) if you worked at CNN you’d know who he didn’t get along with,
3) FOX offered some combination of more money and more air time,
4) he’s concerned that FOX isn’t as good a place to work
5) he sees no reason to burn bridges.

The Roland Martin thing sounds an awful lot like all of the situations where a conservative gets mugged by reality. He knows Martin as a colleague and a decent person; as a result, when Martin is treated in this way, he is appalled. It is like conservative who go to prison and then discover the need for prison reform. Or conservative who have an autistic grandchild and get interested in that. If it doesn’t touch them personally, they don’t care.

Fred Clark at slacktivisit. Has a link to a post about evangelical orthodox alexthymia– a made up word that means the near sociopathic inability to truly feel with other people who are not in the orthodox (right with god in this case–conservative worldview in EE’ case.). The writer discovers people for whom the new town shootings are just a ” yes but” kind of moment. Not even a bump on thevroad where gods will is concerned.

This piece reeks of the sociopath faking emotions like friendship and empathy. He uses words in the right order but it as nothing to do with the real redstate EE

No wonder he’s running to Fox. He was on the same slippery slope of exposure to other ideas and critical thinking that turned Cole into a Islamofascistsocialist Commie!

Sure, you think you can handle it. A little exposure to the ideas of people you disagree with, a little skepticism about the purity of your heroes motives or the feasibility of their ideas. And then one day, boom! you’re, consorting with radical blah people and gays and waging Bolshevist jihad on your evil website!

Run, Eric, run as fast as you can! Get away from all those people who don’t think exactly the way you do before it’s too late!

@General Stuck: I agree. It’s easy to get caught up in the hoopla and forget the importance of being a dedicated, small d, democrat. The humility that it demands isn’t much fun and offers no immediate reward.

Dear Mr. Erickson: Please don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. This spittle-flecked little Nazi will fare much better in the echo chambers of Faux Nooz. Buh-bye, you little shit.

Maybe if you know who Roland Martin is. Nowhere in Erickson’s piece does he explain why it’s strange that in the 21st century someone would hand their keys to a guy whose name sounds like the hosts of Laugh-In.

Good for Erick. Not really that surprising. He’s always seemed to me to be a fellow who spent most of his life in a very tiny geographical area with limited personal exposure to the outside world. A thoughtful piece from Mark Halperin on the other hand …